How long can White House keep Boehner's "ant" crack alive?

Ya think the White House and Dems want to keep attention focused on John Boehner's now-notorious claim that financial reform is akin to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon"?

President Obama, in remarks about financial reform later today in Wisconsin, will unload a lengthy fusillade at Boehner, devoting three paragraphs to that one line in an effort to cast the GOP as out of touch with the financial crisis's impact on ordinary Americans. Excerpts:

Most of our friends in the other party are planning on voting against this reform. In fact, just yesterday, I was stunned to hear the leader of the Republicans in the House say that financial reform was like using a nuclear weapon to target an ant. That's right. He compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their lives savings.

Well if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant. He should ask the men and women who've been out of work for months at a time. He should ask the Americans who send me letters every night that talk about how they're barely hanging on.

These Americans don't believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it's what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again. The Republican leader might want to maintain a status quo on Wall Street. But we want to move America forward.

It remains to be seen whether Boehner's "ant" crack has the wattage of Joe Barton's apology to BP; the president himself is now sinking real energy (four mentions of the "ant" in three paragraphs) into a bid to make it a similarly seminal moment.

In recent days White House officials have been surprisingly quick to seize on remarks by GOPers in hopes of driving the news cycle with the same sort of ferocity the Obama campaign brought to similarly unfortunate gaffes by John McCain. It's another sign that the White House is shifting hard into full election mode -- and a preview of what's to come.

A reasonable call for "more transparency and better enforcement by regulators."

"Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.

"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," Boehner said. What's most needed is more transparency and better enforcement by regulators, he said.

"Allan H. Meltzer, a political economy professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said the financial bill "does nothing to restore integrity to the mortgage market by correcting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the bill does not eliminate 'too big to fail.'"

wow-wee. I love reading comments to stupid stories like these. It shows how ignorant people are. Go google the word "euphemism". You obviously missed a lesson in school. I am sure the pres has an affinity for the phrase "nanny-nanny-boo-boo" as well.

(Obviously everyone is twisting these comments - give me a break.
The financial reform bill will be ineffective--like all the Democrats' bills,
because they're not trying to solve problems, they're just making political moves.
It does absolutely Nothing to fix Fannie &
Freddie ?! What's up with that???

Sounds like Boehner is saying that new FinReg should be made stronger. Do you really think he believes it should be stronger? Do you think he would vote for it/support it if it was stronger? Do you agree it should be stronger?

Hey Greg, sorry to threadjack. I just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your work, and how sorry I am that you are at WaPo. But between l'affaire Weigel and the deuce Kathleen Parker dropped today, I'm going to be deleting my userid and removing all WaPo links from my favorites, and I will no longer link to any WaPo stories.

I hope you and Ezra find better gigs in the near future so I can go back to reading you, but in the meantime I simply can't support your employer with my pageviews.

AS usual, Obama is making sure that no one focuses on the real problems. Jobs and the economy

Too bad, he could have been real Presidential material. Instead we have a thug that blames everyone in the world for comments he does not like, laws he does not like to enforce and every other thing that suit his fancy

Well, the Obamedia is definitely doing their job. People actually think that the MINORITY Republicans are to blame for their ineptitude.

What a bunch of non thinkers.

They passed the healthcare monstrousity without the GOP votes because those idiot have a stranglehold but now, they can't do anything else with the stranglehold because it is the Republicans fault.

So they go after every little thing they say because the party of "IT'S NOT OUR FAULT" are nothing but a bunch of crooks that have to make themselves look good right?

Do the democrats want to have the fight when Countrywide Chris Dodd and Barney FANNIE Frank refused to address FANNIE and FREDDIE because of the massive campaign contributions?

Oh, don't forget auto loans. Somehow, they got excluded from consumer protections, meaning the auto union thugs can make loans to people who have no intentions of paying them back, and the taxpayer will pick up the cost.

Please, have this fight. FANNIE and FREDDIE lobbyists paid off democrats.

Under growing pressure from Wisconsin leaders and union workers, the U.S. Export-Import Bank may reconsider its decision to deny loan guarantees for mining equipment that would be made in the Milwaukee area for supplying coal to a power plant in India, a bank official said Monday.

The bank's rejection of the loan guarantees last Thursday could wipe out $600 million in equipment sales for South Milwaukee-based Bucyrus International Inc., and the company says up to 1,000 U.S. jobs could be at stake - a figure the bank disputes.

The Export-Import Bank, which is funded by Congress, had not reversed the decision as of Monday. But with President Barack Obama due to visit the area Wednesday for a town hall meeting in Racine, the bank was feeling increasing pressure to find a solution.

"I feel like we want to figure out if there is a way to move forward here," said the bank official, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

"We are spending a lot of time thinking about Bucyrus and what we can do," he said. "Our mandate is three things: U.S. jobs, the ability (for a client) to repay, and gauging adverse environmental impacts."

The president of the United Steelworkers of America called for a letter-writing campaign protesting the bank's refusal to finance mining equipment that would be made by union members.

The White House should continue to hit on Boehner's comment, in addition to every detached-from-reality statement that comes out of the mouths of GOP lawmakers. This is just the latest in a string of recent GOP comments that are disturbing, to say the least. It would be one thing to call these recent statements "gaffes," but they have all been scripted...meaning they're planned and are representative of the party's ideology and views.

A better question than the one posed in the headline would be "When will the GOP stop saying stupid things that are completely detached from fact, reason, and reality?"

It appears that you've picked up a handful of spammer smurfs. Congrats, you've really made it! :-D

@BGinCHI:

"...did Boehner say that?"

He said to raise the retirement age to 70, and I believe he said that benifits could/should be reduced to help pay down the debt/deficit. I don't think he called for an elimination of SS...that's Sharron Angle's shtick.

"From January 2008, right after Kudlow’s column ran, through January 2009, the U.S. economy lost 3.5 million jobs. The private sector loss of 3.65 million jobs was slightly offset by 148,000 jobs created by federal, state and local governments. Say what you will, the Bush years were boom times for Big Government.

"And the private sector? Beginning and ending in recession, the Bush presidency added a net of 407,000 private sector jobs over eight years, less than 51,000 a year, the worst eight-year record since 1927-35, which includes the first six years of the Great Depression.

"By January 2009, the average workweek had fallen to 33.3 hours, the lowest since record keeping began in 1964.

"From Jan. 31, 2001, through Jan. 31, 2009, 4.4 million manufacturing jobs, 26 percent of all of the manufacturing jobs in the United States, disappeared."

"Many Union jobs in Wisconsin are on the line, because Green Marxist Government Bankers denied a loan to the mining equipment manufacturer because of CARBON for a project in India!"

----------

Whoaaa...wait a minute. I thought the govt had no place in the private sector? So what does it matter if the govt denied a loan to a privately-owned manufacturer? Funny how you idiots are all in favor of criticizing govt support of the private sector only when it's convenient. But, in reality, you're hoping for a hand-out just like the rest of them. Hypocrite.

@ieklein: People actually think that the MINORITY Republicans are to blame for their ineptitude.

Have you examined the congressional record? Republicans have put a defacto 60 vote test in the senate to EVERY SUBSTANTIVE BILL INTRODUCED BY THE DEMOCRATS. Whether it is HCR, finreg, EFCA, energy legislation, etc. the republicans have stopped VOTES FROM TAKING PLACE. The republicans HAVE NOT OFFERED ANY SUBSTANTIVE BILLS TO ADDRESS ANY OF THE BIG ISSUES. Any policy proposals like Ryan's blueprint, are avoided like the plague by repub congresscritters. Is that their policy prescription for fixing the long term debt and entitlement issue or not? If not, what are they proposing.

They are content to be the party of "NO" and simultaneously blaming the democrats for not doing enough and blocking the dems in the senate from HOLDING VOTES ON THE SOLUTIONS THAT DEMS ARE PROPOSING.

It's about freakin' time Obama started sticking up for good sense. The GOP is also trying to cut off unemployment benefits because they think the unemployed are just lazy. And they want to stop paying Social Security benefits to pay for the war. These are all things that people need to know about before they decide what party to vote for in November.

"He said to raise the retirement age to 70, and I believe he said that benifits could/should be reduced to help pay down the debt/deficit."

Actually, he said that we should raise the age to 70 years so that the money that WOULD have gone to benefits instead went to pay...

...wait for it

...wait for it

...for WAR!

"""Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70"""

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_688102.html

To suggest that these people are clueless is truly not far enough. They are anti-America and pro-Everything Industrial Complex (Military. Energy. Prison. Food/Ag. You name it, if there's a corporate industrial complex that can be built around it, they're FOR it).

@LarryG42:
"Odumbo needs to be reminded that it's jobs, you dumba$s.
This incompetent cabal of leftist clowns is destroying our country. They need to be defeated at every turn.
Disgusting leftist creeps."

You mean all those jobs Reagan and Bush did NOT create. Face it people, it is not, has never been about ideology, left over right. The Republican party has been a miserable failure over the last 30 years. They win only by distraction and displacement, e.g. instead of focusing on how they have lost ground economically, convincing people that the culture wars were more important. You have sown the wind and and now reaping the whirlwind.

There are some things in this country that are still sacred. You people come here, with your iPinions and your hate and spite. You flail about and cast damnation on anything and everything. But I tell you, in this great nation of ours, SOME things are still SACRED!

the comments from most of the rightwingers on this thread -- not all, certainly, but most so far -- are just juvenile attacks that repeat fringe rightwing talking points.

obama the bumbler

obama the machiavelian genius

obama the socialist

etc, etc, etc.

these commenters don't want to engage in discussion or debate. they just want to hurl troglodyte level insults and devolve the conversation.

boehner made what has come to be called a kinsley gaffe: he accidentally told the truth about his opinion of the financial crisis, ordinary americans and his primary loyalty to moneyed interests.

while the dems are far from perfect and always need to be pushed and pulled into better posiitons, they *are* better than the republicans.

so of course the democrats are going to push this as much as they can. most likely, as with the bp apology, this particular comment won't have the legs of, say, allen's macaca moment, but it will strongly reinforce the larger narrative and will also always be available to be pulled from the archive at opportune moments.

is not that far out of touch with the establishment Republican Party Ideology.

Recall that their last Presidential nominee, John McCain, said that Americans workers would not be willing to harvest vegetable crops for $50.00 per hour.

Republican Cognitive Dissonance.

While they were claiming that $50.00 per hour harvesting jobs would go unfilled, because Americans would not do the work, the very same Republicans were claiming that raising the meager minimum wage level, would kill lots of jobs, that Americans were currently willing to take, for a starvation wage.

@theaz : Well, if it is such a good program, why don't they look for private financing, you know, don't look to the government for loan guarantees? Isn't big government taking business from the private sector what you repiglicans constantly rail against? Don't you repiglicans preach that the government shouldn't subsidize job creation in the private sector?

"By a vote of 2 to 1, the bank's three board members denied the loan guarantees for Reliance Power Ltd. of India.

The guarantees would have backed loans that Reliance would have used to purchase mining equipment from Bucyrus."

So your position is that the US government should provide loan guarantees to a foreign company? Really?

I don't know enough about this company or its bottom line to have an opinion about the individual merits of this case, but in general, I think that government can play a constructive role in creating and/or saving jobs, especially during the great recession. Your rant actually shows that Obama at least initially is NOT imposing socialist doctrine in this case, yet you call him a marxist, even though this decision is the opposite of marxism.

BTW: the other NO vote was a Bush appointee, so I guess you are going to rail against bush as a green marxist too. Do I hear crickets?

Well if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant. He should ask the men and women who've been out of work for months at a time. He should ask the Americans who send me letters every night that talk about how they're barely hanging ==============

He had the audacity to say the above. He is no better and is clearly out of touch with the millions of black americans who voted for him and dems.

Not that they don't understand the issues... of course, they do not.... but that they don't understand what it MEANS to discuss or debate.

They are simply too stupid to know HOW to have an intellectual discussion.

They EMBRACE their lack of intellect. They CELEBRATE their ignorance.

I believe this is why they love guns so much. You don't need to REASON with a gun. The gun can't tell you you're ignorant or wrong or "disagree with you on substance." A gun is a phallic symbol of power to them. And that's all they understand: base, primal, raw, phallic means of power as opposed to intellect, vision, empathy, and democracy.

Basically, the Republican Party and its supporters are everything that is wrong with this world.

What the context would make the comparison of the financial crisis that nearly melted down the world economy (according to Bush and Paulsen, BTW) to an ant and the very modest (I would say way too modest) finreg bill a nuclear bomb?

How come he didn't say "oh don't worry this crisis is like an ant" when the crisis was happening?

If Boehner was soooo concerned about the bill, where were his substantive amendments to the bill to make it stronger? Crickets....

What is striking is the juvenile, rabble rouser way of speaking about things that Obama comes up with. I guess that's because that's his background, community organizer, a.k.a. rabble rouser. I thought Bohner's comment about the White House clinging to stimulus spending like "Stage 5 clingers" from the movie "Wedding Crashers" was way more funny, and I'd like to see an Obama denial of that one. Ha ha ha ha ha....

BBWP & ethan,
Despite your arguments to the contrary, there's no intellectual merit in attempting to prop up another Obama "straw man" like this one; to do so would only grant it undeserved merit. Boehner didn't liken the financial downturn to an ant. The deliberate mischaracterization is typical of Obama's rhetoric, as you're no doubt aware.
Grow up. It's certainly you who "are simply too stupid to know HOW to have an intellectual discussion."

Obama should spend more time solving our economic problems and less time trying to make political points. I've seen this country go through many difficult times, but I was always optimistic that we would come out of it. And even though I have insulated myself from the horrors of the present economy, I am concerned Obama and the Democrats will ruin the economy to the extent I will lose what has take me a life time to obtain. I've always been able to take care of myself despite ups and downs. Now, because of Obamanomics, I'm not sure I can.

Obama should spend more time solving our economic problems and less time trying to make political points. I've seen this country go through many difficult times, but I was always optimistic that we would come out of it. And even though I have insulated myself from the horrors of the present economy, I am concerned Obama and the Democrats will ruin the economy to the extent I will lose what has take me a life time to obtain. I've always been able to take care of myself despite ups and downs. Now, because of Obamanomics, I'm not sure I can.

Let's see......the teminally greedy, scum-sucking Republicans were the cause of this financial nightmare and yet they refuse to do absolutely ANYTHING to find a solution. Why? Aside from the fact that they are the biggest bunch of egotistical, arrogant, greedy, self-serving, self-absorbed, deceitful, useless, worthless bunch of human excrement that ever slithered accross the face of the earth, my only guess is that they are desperately praying that we end up in another depression so they can regain their stranglehold on the country and go back to picking the pockets of people who actually WORK for a living and make tax cuts for the wealthy and unlimited corporate welfare the law of the land. If there is a God, the GOP will rot in hell for all of eternity. But, of course, that is only my own simple, unbiased opinion.......

why even bother to comment if you have nothing more than childish rightwing talking points? it's certainly not because you want to have a real discussion based on the merits of finreg, boehner's out of touch comment or the dem's capitalizing on yet another example of a rightwing republican making tone deaf statements.

so you must be here to get a little emotional frisson and try to devolve the conversation.

We now see who is Obama's next attack victim. He started out doing this and it ahs flopped every time. His own words are doing him more harm than anything someone else say and this kind of crap isn't going to sell because it is just another hackneyed liberal template that we all recognize. The post racial President has even made the word "racist" meaningless.
If everyone is a racist then no one is a racist. We aren't buying anything he's selling and neither is the rest of the world. He's seems to be the only one that doesn't know it.

Obama has revealed who he truly is. He's never been out of campaign mode, but his problem we now find he not what he says; he does the opposite of what he says; and no one is paying attention to him. Not even the leaders of other countries.

@Cryos: Republicans proposed a lot of differences to the financial bill including the most important part ADDRESSING FANNIE/FREDDIE.

If you think that fannie/freddie are the heart of the financial crisis, then I would like to sell you my oceanside property in Kansas.

It was hyperleveraging in the financial sector and the explosion of naked derivatives trading in MBS and CDOs that brought the financial house of cards down.

The housing bubble, THAT BUSH CREATED AND RODE WHILE IT WAS GROWING by encouraging low interest rates and allowing mortgage brokers to write contracts without showing that the borrower could actually pay, along with the sub prime loan scandal THAT OCCURRED DURING THE BUSH ERA, were the triggers that sent the AIG over the cliff.

The problems with these two GSE's is wholly the fault of the republicans for insisting that they should both generate profits and still be part of the federal government. I believe the dems wanted them to be non profit entities and the republicans, in all their private enterprise is always good mode, made them untenable by trying to insert the profit motive in a government backed entity.

Hey, there is still time for the repubs to offer a separate bill to fix fannie and freddie if they are really interested in doing something constructive. Funny how I don't see that bill being introduced...

Harry Reid has a commercial out that is an out right lie against Angle. He states that she want to do away with medicare and social security. She wants to move the age limit back by one or two years and that's it. Reid is out there lying and bribing just like he did with the health care bill.

"The financial reform bill will be ineffective--like all the Democrats' bills,
because they're not trying to solve problems, they're just making political moves."

I have never seen a better example of the circular reasoning of the right wing. Democratic bills have been watered down to the point of ineffectiveness by bought and paid for Republican thugs and it's the Dem's fault? It's like the bully blaming the kid with the bloody nose for not being tough enough.

I have never cast a ballot for a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives or a Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

I have put instructions in my will to have this fact noted prominently in my eulogy.

Bushwacked1: I do not care for Obama's policies or many of the prominent Democrats in Congress. Despite that I have never wanted to see any of the people "burn in hell", a fate you want for Republicans. Why the anger and where does this come from? I suggest you get in touch with these feelings and learn to deal with them. Ultimately you will be a happier, more rational person and free from the intense angst that drives you.

@ :Obama and the Democrats will ruin the economy to the extent I will lose what has take me a life time to obtain.

Your timing is off a bit. The big asset hit (about 17 trillion) happened WHILE THE GREAT MBA BUSH WAS IN OFFICE. The lack of regulation enforcement happened under the regulators that BUSH APPOINTED AND THE REPUBLICAN SENATE APPROVED.

I distinctly remember in February of 2009 when Obama invited Boehner along with other Republican leaders to a meeting on bipartisan action on the economic crisis. What will stick in my mind was Boehner's snarky grin that said in so many words to the cameras, "What the f___ am I doing here meeting with this administration?"

If there was one thing that I vehemently disagreed with the President that I voted for in 2008 what his ridiculous expectation of bipartisanship with the Snark Party. Now that Obama has come to his senses on this futile activity, my trust in him has been restored.

But the Democrats are still not hitting back hard enough, despite the easy pitches that the likes of Barton and Boehner have been serving them.

It's a cultural trait: Americans respect a fighter who doesn't act like a punching bag and fights back. But if the Democrats continue to flinch and cringe, ala Michael Dukakis, they will only have themselves to blame when they lose.

Bushwacked1: I do not care for Obama's policies or many of the prominent Democrats in Congress. Despite that I have never wanted to see any of the people "burn in hell", a fate you want for Republicans. Why the anger and where does this come from?
Posted by: saelij

_________________________________

Four thousand plus dead in an an unnecessary war of choice; 4.4 million manufacturing jobs, 26 percent of all of the manufacturing jobs in the United States, gone between Jan. 31, 2001 and Jan. 31, 2009; a $1.5 trillion unfunded, straight-to-the-deficit giveaway to the pharma industry; $1+ trillion added to the national debt so that the richest 2% could enjoy a tax cut; a record 861,664 home foreclosures in 2008; 2001-2009: the worst eight-year job creation record since 1927-35, which includes the first six years of the Great Depression; eight years of stagnant and/or declining median household incomes.

Young, first time job seekers are finding it almost impossible to get hired.

Along comes Full Body Nicotine Stain Boehner, with his proposal to not allow the older workers to retire, until they reach the age of Seventy.

Think about how much harder it would become for young people to get their first full time career jobs, if the oldest workers, are forced to keep their jobs, for another five years.

If the old are kept on, their will be no room made for the newcomers to the job market. Especially since Bush/Cheney did not create a single net job, during their two full terms, while the population of work age Americans expanded by millions of people.

Republicans want to create the illusion that the current economic crisis is just and ordinary, run of the mill, economic downturn. That way they can avoid their culpability in creating the mess we're in and try to characterize Obama's strong response as overreach. In fact the crisis borders on a major World Wide Recession and drastic action IS necessary.

Fear, Hatred, Distortion, Distraction and Division is all they have to offer.

If George W. Bush had not lost the popular vote in 2000 but actualy won that with 52% of the vote (along with a convincing electoral win), and if the Republicans had achieved a substanital majority in the House and with a Super Majority in the U.S. Senate, would they have made entreaties to the Democrats to join them in bipartisanship?

What would have been on the top of the GOP agenda if the above had occured and would they have flinched in response to any opposition?

Anyone with a lick of sense can identify an analogy. Even President Obama knows Rep. Boehner didn't IN ANY WAY say the financial crisis was trivial like an 'ant.' The fact that Obama claims Boehner did say so reveals this President's illiteracy and moral vacuity.

See, an ant is small, and a nuclear weapon is big and powerful. So the analogy is being used to say that what is being regulated, the financial sector's tendency to start calamities and the consequences of this, is very small, like an ant. And the big bad regulation is huge in comparison (even after its massive watering down).

@Kschmid: Anyone with a lick of sense can identify an analogy. Even President Obama knows Rep. Boehner didn't IN ANY WAY say the financial crisis was trivial like an 'ant.'

Actually what Boehner made was a simile, comparing 2 unlike things using like or as. Anyone with a lick of sense can identify a simile.

Well, exactly what did he mean? In the structure of the simile the ant was the financial crisis and finreg is the nuclear bomb, right? Boehner was saying that the size of the solution is out of scale with the size of the problem. This is plainly false as a matter of fact. If anything the finreg ant is trying to move the financial crisis boulder. (that is a metaphor, BTW.)

What I want to know is when does Obama start having to take responsibility for the economy? When Reagan inherited the Carter economy, it didn't take him long to turn things around. And, the thing about rich people; we have to have them folks otherwise little people (I include myself) wouldn't have jobs - and by the way, the millionaire I work for is a Republican. Despite the down turn and lower sales, no one has been laid off at my company!

@saelij: What I want to know is when does Obama start having to take responsibility for the economy?

When republicans come up with a plan to pay for the 4 trillion that Bush added to the debt and when the long term effects of the biggest financial and economic crises (that HAPPENED WHEN REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED THE WHITEHOUSE AND (FOR 6 OF THE 8 YEARS) CONTROLLED THE CONGRESS) at least a year into the rear view mirror. It took Reagan 3 years to get unemployment "down" to 8%.

"Reagan inherited the Carter economy, it didn't take him long to turn things around."

I was just getting out of college when raygun took office. I remember 21% interest rates, the highest unemployment since the great depression, massive deindustrialization of the upper midwest including thousands of steel workers in my neighborhood who permanently lost their jobs, deregulatory zeal that allowed massive environmental damage in the west, the general weakening of the financial regulatory structure that lead to the crash of 1987 (the biggest % drop since the great depression).

That was some turnaround. The economy sucked for about 3 years as I recall.

There was the savings and loan crisis brought on be deregulation.

during the first 4 years of the Reagan administration, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.3% was 7.2% by election time 1984. It was the time of the Laffer curve, since proven to be wrong (cutting taxes doesn't bring in more revenue at the levels taxes were at during Reagan's term.)

Since when hasn't the White House been in "full election mode". This White House has been campaigning for Obama's entire time in office. It's clear that campaigning is all he knows how to do. It sure beats leading the country back to prosperity.